When I spoke to Ken yesterday he told me the saddest thing was that Sheila had known all of this was going to happen to her.

“I told her not to worry,” Ken says. “I said, ‘They won’t take your benefits, they can see you can’t work’.

“But Sheila said, ‘They will because they are a cruel Government’.” His voice breaks. “You see, Sheila was cleverer than any of us. She knew.”

What she couldn’t have known is that the private companies employed by the DWP would continue to hound her even when she was in a coma.

Fit for work? Sheila Holt in a coma in a hospital bed (Image: Collect)

Linda says: “Sheila had her life stolen from her by the ill-thought-out cost-cutting measures of this Coalition.”

In July 2013, despite her condition, Atos placed Sheila – from Rochdale, Greater Manchester – in the Work Related Activity Group of disability benefit claimants following one of its now ­infamous assessments.

“I believe that if it wasn’t for Iain Duncan Smith, Sheila would still be alive,” Ken, 75, a former mill worker says.

“Sheila should never have been on the Work Programme. She spent her life in and out of psychiatric hospitals and tried to commit suicide several times. She was terrified of people.”

As soon as she was called in by Atos, Linda was worried.

She wrote on Sheila’s form: “It is extremely important Sheila doesn’t experience stressful situations”.

But in August, Sheila was allocated a Groundwork placement in Middleton, Greater Manchester – two bus rides away – where she forced to compile CVs.

Her severe anxiety went into overdrive.

“She just couldn’t cope,” Linda says. "Sheila’s CV had one line on it: ‘1984 to present day – recovering from an illness’.

"Those courses were the catalyst that tipped Sheila over the edge.”

When Ken visited his daughter on December 5, she was so agitated he took her to A&E.

The next day she was sectioned and on December 17 she suffered a massive heart attack at the psychiatric unit.

Staff fought to save her but her brain was starved of oxygen for 30 minutes and she fell into a coma.

While Sheila lay unconscious in hospital, she was sent letters from Seetec, the private company providing the Work Programme.

One said: “We hope that all the activity completed so far has not only supported you to achieve your aspirations but has moved you closer to the job market.”

After her MP Simon Danczuk raised her case in the Commons, the then Minister for Disabled People Mike Penning apologised unreservedly.

Grief: Ken and Linda Holt, the father and elder sister of Sheila Holt (Image: Daily Mirror)

“It clearly has gone wrong and the family have every right to be aggrieved and I hope she makes a full recovery, as much as she can,” Penning said.

On Friday, her postmortem found Sheila had died of injury caused when her brain was deprived of oxygen.

“This never needed to have happened,” says Ken. “I blame Iain Duncan Smith. I blame Atos and Seetec. If it wasn’t for them she would still be with us today.”

Yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions said the Government stood by Mike Penning’s apology.

Simon Danczuk says Sheila’s case is one of the most distressing he has come across.

“My heart goes out to Sheila’s family,” he says. “I’ve seen Ken’s devotion to his daughter. He’s been through hell having to see her lose her fight for life.

“This should never have happened and it shows why we shouldn’t rush headlong into bad, half-baked policy.

“A Government minister has ­apologised to Ken but we need proper assurances the Tories won’t make others suffer the same fate.

“The welfare system is there to support the most vulnerable, not kill them.”

Yesterday Tom Pollard at mental health charity Mind said Government back-to-work schemes were failing a “majority” of people with mental health problems.

“Programmes supposed to help those unwell and struggling to get into work are having the opposite effect, damaging their health,” he said.

“If someone is out of work because of depression and anxiety, asking them to attend a CV writing course doesn’t address the real problems they are facing.

“Forcing people to engage in these activities, and cutting their benefits if they struggle to do so, is inappropriate and counterproductive.

“We know most people with mental health problems do want to work, they just need the right support.”

After Sheila’s funeral this week, she will be laid to rest in North Wales with her mum who passed away in 2011.

She will finally be at peace.

“There’s no more bipolar episodes for her to suffer any more,” Ken says. “But it’s not just her.

“There are hundreds like her. People are dying because they are being hounded.